Charles Tilly War Making And State Making Organized Crime Summary

Mary Kaldor theory of ‘new wars’ proposes that because of the many changes the world has gone through since the concept of ‘wars’ was first defined, our understanding of wars is outdated. In the modern world, wars are fought using different methods and tactics than the ones that were at one point the standard. Today, both the state and the non-state actors contribute to wars. Wars were once fought for ideological reasons; modern wars, however, are fought in the name of identity politics. The goal of the ‘new wars’ is to achieve political power and control, whereas, old wars were fought by majorly physical means.

"Thus, argued Roberts, the modern art of war made possible — and necessary — the creation of the modern state.”

I agree only to a large extent that the alliance pathology of ‘chain-ganging’ was responsible for the first outbreak of World War I (WWI). I believe that entrapment is the main reason to why the war actually happened. Apart from chain-ganging, there were also other factors that had contributed to the escalation of the war. In this essay I will be discussing the various factors that have led to the outbreak of WWI. Firstly, I will be defining what an alliance is and how important is to a state in an anarchical society. Secondly, I will move on to debate the various alliance pathologies which are chain-ganging, entrapment and the fear of abandonment. I will eventually be concluding the essay by explaining why I believe that chain ganging was the main reason to why the First World War happened.

War is amongst the oldest social facts in human history. It promises power and honour; it also brings death and regret. As the bloodiest type of warfare, interstate war has aroused numerous reflections on the causes of it. Most scholars regard interstate wars as resulting from states’ intent for survival and power in an anarchic international system. Thus, the root motivations to go to war lie in the international politics. In their arguments, Michael Howard, Greg Cashman and Leonard C. Robinson, and Kenneth N. Waltz also share this viewpoint, though with their own different foci and emphases. Before discussing how their opinions relate to one another, I will first generalize their views separately, discussing the weaknesses and strengths

Unlike Samuel Huntington and his views of war being categorized by the clashes of civilizations, Moisi takes on a simpler approach in determining the behaviors of a state. In The Geopolitics of Emotion, Moisi emphasizes the importance of emotions, particularly hope, fear and humiliation as they are closely tied with the notion of confidence. Confidence then becomes an important factor in explaining the behavior of a state (5). Moisi believes confidence projects a nation into a successful future, and therefore is one of the most important variables in determining the welfare of the state. Moisi establishes the framework of confidence as the crux of his book, and in order to fully receive his message, one must have an understanding on how different

In Giddens’ “State, Society and Modern History”, we learn what it means to have power being an agent. The author writes about two types of power, which are allocative and authoritative. The first refers to the dominion over material facilities like perhaps non-renewable resources or access to agriculture that perhaps other states do not have available to them. The second refers to the actual dominion over human activities like it is to enforce the law and have citizens abide by the rules. According to Giddens, to be an agent is to be able to make a difference to the world, and to be able to do that is to have power. This is a very important point since it provides with a very good base for what is to be discussed next. Otto Hintze and Max Weber, the “founding fathers” of state building theory, make a lot of emphasis on the use of violence and warfare as successful means for state building. The work of these authors is very interesting and logical since it provides us with proof of what has worked effectively in the past. Weber’s definition of the state is divided into three main components, which are the existence of regularized administrative staff able to sustain the claim to legitimate monopoly control of the means of violence and uphold that monopoly within a territorial area. In other words, have a government that is able to put a strong and large army that is feared by others and be able to protect their borders with such army. Hintze says it is military

Realists such as Hans Morgenthau and more recently Lloyd Gruber, base their theories on the assumption individuals, and hence states, act rationally to protect their own interests, the national interest. They believe states exist in a world of anarchy without an over arching authority. While this may be the case and it certainly is for some states, it is a theory that requires review within the context of the modern world and international law. In the world of bi-polar power during the Cold War, Morgenthau’s views interpreted

In contrast to both Echevarria and Simpson, Mary Kaldor in her article “Inconclusive wars: Is Clausewitz still relevant in these global times?” argues that the nature of war today is so different that it is impossible to make a comparison between the wars of Clausewitz times and contemporary conflict. “The notion of absolute war and the inner tendency to lead to extremes” (Kaldor 2010, 271) is not applicable to modern warfare. The unlimited character of absolute war that Clausewitz saw in the Napoleonic wars today, due to technological developments like the atomic bomb , would lead to the annihilation of civilization. As a result contemporary warfare has developed the notion of deterrence or “wars fought in the imagination” (Kaldor 2010, 274) that tend to be long lasting, inconclusive and have the tendency to spread. Furthermore, Kaldor reasons, wars today not only involve non-state actors and international organizations, that were not present in Clausewitz intrastate conflicts, but they are about identity politics that target civilians as much as soldiers. Modern conflicts are a form of societal disintegration more so than the state building wars of Clausewitz’s period. It is therefore more accurate to define today’s wars as “an act of violence involving two or more organized groups framed in political terms” (Kaldor 2010, 271).

While in Section 4 it explores the process by which resources become linked to armed conflicts, focusing on processes of inclusion, exclusion and criminalization. In this section an interpretation has been created that builds on the concept of ‘bad governance’ characterizing ‘weak’ or ‘failed’ states. While developing countries enjoying ‘good governance’ may be considered for inclusion, countries affected by ‘bad governance’ are deemed prone to ‘chaotic’ conflicts and considered a new plague requiring their exclusion. This understanding has fed into the paradigm of a ‘coming [dangerous] anarchy’ resulting

Gangs and ‘clubs’ are very territorial “and resist the incursion of other [gangs] in their defined territories.” Furthermore, territorial wars are frequent due to the disputes over who has sovereignty over particular territory. (Barker & Human, 2009). These ideas seem to defend the argument that the emergence of neomedieval systems of returning to the middle ages with occurrence of overlapping sovereignty is causing motivations for modern day conflicts. Albeit that the conflict is military against non-governmental actors or bilateral non-government conflict. It can be seen as the neomedieval and refeudalization of the concept of legitimate sovereignty over authority.

The Westphalia treaty of 1648 which ended the Thirty Years War, can be described as one of the prominent milestones that shaped the principle of state sovereignty. These treaties, both signed in the western cities of current day Münster and Osnabrück, Germany. This paper will describe the conditions that made it necessary for a co-existing agreement in Europe at the time, which would later become the basis of a state’s self-determination and existence. It will also include the implications that the treaty had upon Europe, and the world today. The many political principles deriving from the Westphalian treaty would become apparent in modern-day society, whether embraced fully or used as a stepping stone to considering other principles, it would influence the way that international law, politics, and diplomacy would be determined. A state is defined as a legal entity with a permanent population, a well-defined territory, and a government capable of exercising sovereignty. The definition becomes important during this time period of the signing of the Peace Treaty, and for the overall international law for years to come.

Political or territorial, she explains, war threatens more than just the land. It is a threat to the ‘common life.’ Calling on political theory, a Rousseauian view, she includes the social contract in her analysis. On a basic level, this theory says that citizens and state have a contact where the people renounce some of their rights to the state so the state can protect them. Thus, on a grand scale, “it is not, then, the ownership of the land per se that gives people the right to defend themselves against invasion,” Frowe goes on to explain that it is in fact the self-determined way of life that is developed on the lands, “It is this that sovereignty protects, and it is this that provides states with a just cause for war.” (54)

On the other hand, realist principles directly promote, among states, the necessity of being powerful in order to guarantee their own security in such anarchic environment. Hence, a credible military force is highly required as a compact shield against tangible threats where the power of politics is not sufficient. Even though, the strength of the military should be supposedly employed for defensive purposes; this power has also been often used to neutralize states in the

The use of terror is a worldwide phenomenon. The historical record has seen its use for many reasons. One of these reasons is to establish and protect a political ideology and have that ideology recognised by other states. But what then can we define as terrorism? The term itself is one that has been adopted in Western societies to identify the types of actions that cannot be defined as justifiable in any sense. However, evident in this essay is the practice of terrorism as much more than just a random radical happenstance and more of a political instrument. This is evident in all three examples list above. Syria used terrorism to crush political enemies, Zedong’s radical movement allowed him to seize power through terror and the South African government assisted terrorists to help them both defeat their political oppositions. It can be argued that there are even Western societies that can be accused of using terrorist tactics against their own citizens. While their actions aren’t always labelled as terrorism, their tactics are similar in the form of their capability to terrorise. Weber’s contributions to the field of politics might help to develop the framework for ‘political terrorism’. In his essay, ‘Politics as a Vocation’ (Weber 1958, p. 77), Weber describes how politics is “not limited to the policies and questions of the day, but rather how the hypothetical parties in question attempt to attain political power and keep that power, their ‘physical force’. Tilley builds

Generally interstate politics is a permanent bargaining game over the distribution of power, thus it describes world politics as a state of war and a struggle of power, and is pessimistic about the prospects for eliminating conflicts and war. Therefore, the best description for world politics is the constant possibility of war, because the nature of humanity or structure of international order allows wars to occur. Realists recognize that states go to war for significant reasons, which makes it difficult to understand the exact causes of wars. Hence, there is no question that states often begin wars to acquire power over a rival stateand to enhance their security (Dunny, Kurki, & Smith 2016), such as during the Cold War. Mogenthau (1945) argues that human nature is the main cause of war. He maintains that everyone was born with power that drives them to dominate each other. Thus power is the currency of international politics, which is therefore important to have a substantial amount of power and ensure a balance of power (Dunny, Kurki, & Smith 2016). Waltz (1979) is practical in stating that the primary goal of states is not to maximinze power, but to achieve or minimize the security needed (p126). This means that improving a nation’s power is indeed only a means to another end, that end being less of a reliance on maintaining high security, since that nation will be holding the power. The case in point here is that when the U.S formed an alliance with Western Europe, this